SPORTS OF THE TIMES; Hindsight, The Knicks And Nelson's Foresight

By HARVEY ARATON

Published: March 2, 2007

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Let your mind wander back to March 8, 1996, the day the Knicks cast Don Nelson out as an eccentric coach and a burnout case.

Remember how the players celebrated Nelson's dismissal and the installation of the career assistant Jeff Van Gundy. How Dave Checketts, the president of Madison Square Garden, said Nelson ''looked defeated.''

Beleaguered, beaten down, with the unforgivable record of 34-25, after the same number of games the 26-33 Knicks have played this season going into tonight's Garden meeting with the Golden State Warriors and their first-year coach, Don Nelson.

Granted, that was a different era, in a James Dolan-less Garden and a context almost inconceivable given the current deflated achievements and standards. Under Van Gundy the Knicks did resurface as a solid playoff team until the bottom dropped out. But given what Nelson subsequently achieved, his keen eye for talent, it's also fair to ask: Would he have been better for the long haul?

''Oh, it would never have worked out in New York,'' Nelson said yesterday in a telephone interview, an acknowledgment that succeeding Pat Riley was mission impossible, especially for him.

Nelson was an outsider, an agent of change, who didn't believe the Knicks had much of a future with Patrick Ewing, then 33 and angling for a rich contract extension, as their franchise player. Nelson was thinking out of the box, and big. He wanted the Knicks to chase Shaquille O'Neal, who was playing his last season in Orlando.

''I had coached Shaq in the world championships in '94 and established a pretty good relationship with him,'' Nelson said. ''I knew he wanted to go elsewhere and so I brought this up a meeting with the Garden people. I said: 'He would come to New York. It's going to be Los Angeles or us. And if we give 'em Ewing, it would be the best deal Orlando could make.'

''Well, somehow that got back to Ewing and after that, I was toast.''

Put off by Nelson's up-tempo offense that didn't feature him as a low-post hub, Ewing led an insurrection, a work slowdown. Instead of the toast, the Knicks put their money on Ewing, their longtime bread-and-butter, and so much overpriced talent that made them what are they today.

But what if they had taken the alternative route, given up trying to re-create Riley, Armani and all, and just let Nelly be Nelly? What if they had let the man who had worn ugly fish ties stalking the sideline in unglamorous Milwaukee remake the Knicks in his own unpredictable image?

Maybe they would not have gotten Shaq, but might they have developed a more worldly view?

Gregg Popovich, coach of the internationally flavored and three-time champion Spurs, tells of how, on a late 1980s trip to Germany to take his first close look at the European game, he spotted one familiar American face in the arena. It was Nelson, in front of the pack, ahead of his time.

''It was actually my son, Donny, who was the pioneer,'' Nelson said. ''He was traveling all over the world, playing amateur ball. He called me from Russia one day and said, 'You've got to see some of these guys.' I went over and was amazed by the way they played, especially the ability of the big men to pass and shoot like the guards.''

That the signature draft pick of Nelson's long career would be a German was a coincidence. That he was astute enough to land Dirk Nowitzki, the best foreign N.B.A. player to date, was not.

Nelson, the coach who wasn't urbane enough for Celebrity Row, went to Dallas and in four years turned one of the league's perennial losers into a 60-victory team. He drafted Nowitzki, traded for Steve Nash when Nash was a backup in Phoenix to Jason Kidd and developed both.

Here we are, all these years after being told by the Knicks that Nelson was a has-been in his mid-50s, and his guys, Nowitzki and Nash, are the essential players on the teams (Dallas and Phoenix) with the league's best records, with Nowitzki the leading contender to replace Nash as most valuable player.

Just for the record, Nelson reminds us that he also drafted Josh Howard, a rising co-star for Nowitzki in Dallas, with the 29th pick in the first round. By comparison, how many All-Stars have the Knicks developed since, well, Ewing was won in a lottery in 1985?

''I've always enjoyed the games, the competition, but putting the teams together, developing the talent, that's what I've enjoyed the most,'' Nelson said.

He has coached more victories than anyone except Lenny Wilkens but has not won a title, and his teams, no defensive juggernauts, have rarely overachieved in the playoffs. Doubts also persist about Nash's and Nowitzki's ability to front a champion, although critics shouldn't belabor this point. Nowitzki's struggles in last year's finals notwithstanding, he hit a cold-blooded jumper over Shaq near the end of Game 5 -- a shot of title timber -- only to have Dwyane Wade bailed out by a dubious whistle in the series' pivotal moment.

Nelson was out of the Dallas picture by then, seemingly in retirement, until the Warriors' general manager, Chris Mullin, reached out to his old coach and mentor during Nelson's first go-round at Golden State. The season has been turbulent, injury marred, but Nelson said he likes the core talent, especially the Latvian Andris Biedrins, whom he recently called the best center he has coached since Bob Lanier, way back in Milwaukee.

Was he serious or looking to settle an old score? Better than Ewing?

Obviously not the Ewing in his prime, Nelson said, just the Ewing that he coached, the Ewing who resisted change and reality, who made the Knicks choose.

Close your eyes. Look back with what you know now. Smart choice or not?

Photos: Patrick Ewing got wind that Don Nelson wanted to trade him. Ewing led an insurrection that got Nelson fired. (Photo by Ron Frehm/Associated Press)(pg. D1); Don Nelson is second to Lenny Wilkens in career coaching victories in the N.B.A. (Photo by Rick Scuteri/Reuters)(pg. D3)